Guild Wars 2

Currently I run a Sword/shield in my main equips and switch up secondary gear with Hammer, rifle, Mace/Horn, and I play a tanky support, kind of a first one in last one out style where I just do all I can to soak up damage and keep people alive.

But After running lots of dungeons and only ever seeing warriors who run GS signet builds it makes me want to slap each and every one of them and tell them that they are doing nothing for the group.

Sure its a awesome dps build but dam, switch in some shouts or banners please and do something other that hitting the enemy to help your group.

Only once have I run into a GS warrior that had a focus on shout utilities and it worked great, still high damage plus they helped heal the group and cleanse, through soldier runes and traits.

Well rant over I guess, let me know how you feel about it, if you are a GS/signet warrior maybe try and enlighten me as to why you go with this build rather having any support.

10 strength, 30 defense and 30 tactics
Knight armor (Power, Prec, Vitality)
Sword/Shield and Long Bow
Immobilizes, stuns healing shouts and burning AoE with fire auras

Am I helping the party enough!?

yep, thats the sort of build I love seeing, but sadly warriors who use it seem to be few and far between

The worst is when they claim they only have 900 toughness but its okay cause they have “CRAZY CRITS!” Then they proceed to die every pull and talk kitten because “melee is hard to play” you’re only making it more difficult for yourself with spec/gear like that /facepalm

Well never had that happen, but I don’t talk too much other than asking at the start of the instance if they are gonna change their utilities from solo to dungeoning ones.

I usually do what i can to dish out damage and stun my opponents but when im in a dungeon I switch my hounds to the war banner to give my group a small power and speed boost.

They just need to give us multiple build slots that we can switch between.

Right now you can only have 2 builds, 1 for sPvP, and the other that you have to use for everything else.

It costs way too much to retrait everything for a dungeon run. If I could switch between builds for different types of content then I’d gladly run a support spec for dungeons, but the game doesn’t support that right now.

Really you need 4 builds:
PvE/Soloing
PvE Dungeons
WvW
sPvP

That would be awesome Dread and I do hope it is on the books for a future update.

but until then you don’t even need to retrait, just changing up your utility slots can do a world of difference, aoe cleanses, fears and boons can help out a lot more than just a flat out dps build.

Look I play through questing with the signet build, but when going into dungeons I am using flags and shouts. The problem is nobody ever picks up the flag to move it to the next mob. The other problem is the range of the flag’s effectiveness. (As far as I know you need to be quite close to them to get the boons). Which doesn’t help when your melee and everybody else is range.

I could be wrong about the range, but as far as I have seen its quite limited.

mm I haven’t noticed this personally since I don’t really use Banners but from what I have seen yeah the range is quite limited at least from using the elite banner, I’ll have a look when I get on tonight and try and see what the range is like. Seems like for them to be the most effective you need to either throw it down in melee range for the melee guys or put it out where the ranged guys are standing depending on group makeup and trying to get everyone to stay in range.

Fatesway.4321:

10 strength, 30 defense and 30 tactics
Knight armor (Power, Prec, Vitality)
Sword/Shield and Long Bow
Immobilizes, stuns healing shouts and burning AoE with fire auras

Am I helping the party enough!?

I’d love to know the exact build you are using. I’ve been using an axe and shield since starting, but have just switched to sword and shield. I love it to bits, but my setup and traits are a bit mis-matched. Would you be so kind as to make a link to the build you use?

I really love sword and shield, but I find I still take quite a lot of damage if I’m not dodging around and whatnot. I realise there isn’t really a build that can take hits as a common tank in other MMOs would, but some more survivability would be good!

Thanks!

25 str 20 tacs and 10 in power as a 65 GS / LB warr. I use shouts and cleansing to help a grp out and an a elite skill the banner that rezzes ppl cant recall whats the name right now.

Not too sure about what gear im going after at 80 but atm im using power / prec gear. Ppl with purely dps build are useless in dungeons tbh, they dont help the grp neither can they take a little beating

mmm, good to see another sane GS warrior, I am currently using knight crafted gear, power precision toughness, that works quite well.

20/20/0/30/0

I don’t run the signet build, I run a shout build for my team as well as dishing out some cheap GS crits. Using Power/Toughness/Vit Karma Gear and Knight Crafted Gear.

Not all of us GS Warriors are selfish. :<

I know its not everyone, but just from my experience I have only me one maybe two other warriors who didn’t just use a Pure dps build.

Signet spec is lacking, even as a full DPS spec.

That said, full DPS is great. Just not in random groups. Survivability is a huge issue without good support+control in your party, and most people build towards DPS regardless of class.

Full tactics is also great though.

Dps builds can be useful yeah only as long as the rest of the group has enough cc stuff, they way I look at it though is the more control you have the easier the fight is going to be, might take a little longer but meh its much safer.

Tactics is probably my favorite trait tree for warriors, healing from shouts is just awesome, especially with shorter cooldowns.

I have a balanced build between bleeds and toughness. I admit I have nothing in tactics, but I survive well and still blast off shake it off and fgj as often as needed. I also soak a ton of damage and kite mobs while bleeding them down pretty well. Still, you guys make me feel bad with your healing shouts!

Im a mace/shield + hammer build warrior, running, 10/0/30/30/0 using Knight gear, works really well so far. I may consider switching to power/toughness/healing power gear at some point to see how much of a difference it makes.

MadMossy.8715:

Im a mace/shield + hammer build warrior, running, 10/0/30/30/0 using Knight gear, works really well so far. I may consider switching to power/toughness/healing power gear at some point to see how much of a difference it makes.

I’m running something similar too, but 0/0/30/30/10 with shouts giving adrenaline. I like using the Hammer stun quite often, it makes the whole experience more entertaining jumping all over the place stunning enemies. On a more serious note, if you stun 2-3 targets for 2 seconds, you’re saving your team 3-5k damage so it’s really helpful. I also use Earthshaker for mobility to get out of red circles for example when I’m out of dodges or to jump to people that need resurrection.

With Knight’s gear it works really really well, make sure to also get trinkets rings amulets and so forth with knight stats. I have roughly around 2200 toughness and I feel like I can tank bosses for quite some time, obviously with the right dodges and blocks. I’d also suggest getting the Sigil of Blood to steal health on criticals as I have around 60% crit with fury up.

I run with 2500 toughness, 3500 armour and about 24k hp using exotic gear

Also have around 1800 power and about 55% critical chance so I get the best of both worlds really, damage and survivability.

I also trait for reflecting missiles when blocking, incredibly funny watching riflemen in CM explorable hit themselfs for 2k+

what people need to do is add their builds on this site so other warriors can look at them and try diffrent things…

Everytime I search for new builds all I see is glass cannon GS build with full signet…

Make a thread or something with all the diffrent types of builds for diffrent purposes to help the noob warriors out when they search for builds.

My PvE build is Hammer + axe/warhorn with 20 toughness, 30 vitality, 20 burst, heavy CC build and I can swap major traits between healing shouts build with On My Mark for vulnerability bomb, and banner regen build, depending on what’s most needed (instant heals vs regens). My gear is all power/precision/toughness, sitting at over 2000 toughness right now.

I actually don’t meet that many signet GS warriors, although most of the warriors I group with do use GS (rarely more than 2 signets, tho).

80 warrior, signet build, GS here for solo – nothing matches the burst DPS at the moment. High offense means much easier time since time-to-kill is much lower.

The problem is really people running 30/30/…10 builds with Signets/GS. In dungeon/coordinated groups, I agree that there are far better “support” (or at least defensive) builds that would better suit the overall PvE group better.

Here’s the thing, change your build. At 80, it’s 3.5 silver, or basically, next to nothing. ANet just really needs to add retrainers near every dungeon entrance. This would also help to “on the fly” coordinate based on PUG.

i agree with the OP..signet build was great per se,but it’s value diminished when this build gets into the dungeon, and especially doing an EM run since the build itself can’t support others and will die very often (my experiences with the PuG)..

i love the build itslef but past lvl 40ish i respec the traits into :
Dungeon sets :
10/20/0/30/10
equip – Sword/Warhorn/Shield and GS/Rifle <—- very situational
i mainly use warhorn recharge 20% faster and have a shouts heals self and allies
skills : healing signet, FGJ, OMM, SIO and signet of rage/battle standard (mainly in PuG)

note : with this build i got perma swift,might and fury

so far i’ve run with my best group to tackle AC EM – Ghost Eater path in under 1 hour and my best time so far was 48 minutes

fortunately on my server i’ve yet encounter players that won’t listen to what others advice or tactics during the run

i was thinking about ditching Strength and Disc and invested in 20 for Defense and get the regen from adrenaline leves :p

Greatswords are cheap to buy currently.

A sword by itself is more expensive. Add in the shield cost and it just isn’t cost effective for your average warrior.

Greatsword is fine; it’s Greatsword + Signets that is the issue. Change out the Signets for more group utility (except Healing Signet and Signet of Rage). Just not playing smart and using a ranged weapon/aware of group mate health is probably the real issue here.

People use Greatsword/Signet/Power/Prec builds and get tunnel vision.

only signet i run with in dungeons is healing signet. for easy runs i will take out my banner for rage, since no one really goes down. otherwise i use shouts and reduced recharge or banners and reduced recharge/extended range.

Man I love the idea of using banners but in practice I just don’t think they work well. For example the elite banner we have expires after like 45 sec and is on a 2-3 min cooldown which means it has limited uptime and a limited radius. I believe the other banners a similar. I’m not really sure tbh I absolutely love the idea of using my banners because it sounds so warrior like but in practice I don’t really like the way they work. Radius feels too small, uptime too low, benefits a little weak, putting them down can be a chore at times especially with more than one. Please convince me because I would love to switch to using them but right now they just seem like a bother when I can simplify my play style and just add some cc and pure damage. I’m also the first one to revive when a mate goes down. I just tank damage until I get them up then dodge out. Man I really want to like those banners.

I’m actually trying to stray away from doing that. I want to have a glass cannon build type, but one that helps out the group and doesn’t die easily. I need to reach 80 asap though lol I made this build so far, not sure if it will be good enough, mind if anyone here takes a look at it?

link

I only did the basic math in my head, but by my thinking, the GS Signet/Crit build as I see most people play it (never actively using the Signets other than the Heal; not even Dolyak for Stability) is not hampered by replacing Signet of Might with “For Great Justice”. Past level 35 the perma-Might will always add more Power than the Signet passive. Reliable Fury for every 8 seconds out of 25 is more averaged DPS than the 40 points of Precision they’re losing.

Basically, even solo it makes no sense not to have “For Great Justice” instead of a Signet. In a group where the effect is shared it’s ridiculous.

But let’s face it: Part of the attraction of the Signet build for some people is that they don’t have to track CDs across half their skills and can just spam attacks while still feeling they’re getting something from their Skill selection.

But what do I know… My Signet build is 20/20/20/0/10. I’m clearly doing it wrong.

I am a 5 signet Stacking 92% Crit warrior with a Greatsword. We are born damage dealers. Banners are extremely lackluster in both effect and range, physical skills are completely and utterly useless (since they are usually forms of minor CC). The only real support warrior build is to go Sword/Warhorn or Mace/Warhorn where you can use shouts with 30 points to heal..barely.

Dungeons are 5 man teams, and warriors are barely capable of setting up combo fields inside their comfort zone.
My teams much prefer me to melt bosses than to do weak damage for the whole fight, there are classes better skilled for support. If you’re rolling with Guardian/Ele/Necro, you’ll already have nearly every single field in the game up, as well as boons and heals from everywhere, Necro also has mad condition cleanse and so does the guardian and Ele’s are so unintentionally stacked in support its crazy…they don’t just chain fields, nearly every move they peform has an effect (stun/shield/regen/burn/swiftness).

I really don’t see the point of playing anything other than a high dps yield.

Leave the support warriors for WvW

I feel ya.
I run a support with banner heals (the banner icons show total healing topping 32.5k hp regen with only 3 exotics on**working on crafting a full set**). The rest is yellow +healing gear. +30% chance to heal others on all my weps (axe/mace and bow).

30 def, 30 tactics and 10 in power for the heck of it. All banner related except for the 2 auto shouts for Shake it Off and the no damage one (I forget what it is atm) at 25% health.

Almost EVERY other warrior I’ve seen so far has been a signet-wearer, which is okay I guess as long as they’re staying off their backs more often than not. It’d be really cool to get someone with healing shouts to go with my banners, though.

~Mewmewcachoo

If someone is playing well with the party in a pug situation, I am not going to be a kitten and complain about how they should respec to the “proper” build instead. I find people with the “lol u’re playing X build” attitude in a pug situation in MMOs to be incredibly obnoxious. If you want to go heavily into damage, and are managing to do a great job of it, go for it, I’m happy to compensate and cover some of the party support or control if needed. If you’re dying all the time and are a liability, we’ll have to talk though.

I guess I can see where you are coming from Naraldeth and its awesome if you have a decent group you run with who you know can handle support, but my main problem is going to a pug seeing 2 or 3 other warriors who are all 5 signet GS warriors. so it means everyone else has to cover for them.

In most cases I would just be happy if they all switched one out and used FGJ would be a hell of a lot better for the group.

Vain.1029:

If someone is playing well with the party in a pug situation, I am not going to be a kitten and complain about how they should respec to the “proper” build instead. I find people with the “lol u’re playing X build” attitude in a pug situation in MMOs to be incredibly obnoxious. If you want to go heavily into damage, and are managing to do a great job of it, go for it, I’m happy to compensate and cover some of the party support or control if needed. If you’re dying all the time and are a liability, we’ll have to talk though.

Sure if they are playing smart and not getting killed its alright, but I mean its not even the build (I assume you mean traits) that I want to see them change, even one or two signets out to something that can help the group, would make a world of difference

I try to avoid taking another Warrior with us when I dungeon, I find it brings the whole experience down, because I know myself I am a 5 Signet stacker, but I also understand the importance of teamwork… I’d hate to force my ele into a new attunement every 3 seconds because I couldn’t be bothered to wait for a different class to join and don’t want to have 2 Signet stacking button mashers

25/25/0/0/20 Signet warrior here (GS + Rifle)

The only utility skills rather than signets I use in instances are For Great Justice and On my Mark. I have found banners to be a terrible joke and the horn just doesn’t fit in my ideal of a mighty warrior.
My contribution to the team? doing tons of damage… isn’t that enough?
Btw survivability isn’t a big problem too, even with full Berserk (only my jewels are Knight or Valkyrie)

Well to be honest Ryoga your contribution is damage plus buffing allies which is cool, at least you are doing something to help the group out, my problem is getting into groups with warriors use a GS signet glass cannon build, then expect the rest of the group to cover support stuff like CC, boons and healing.

Sure damage is great but its useless if you keep getting downed and other people need to stop dpsing and rez you, dead people do no dps, maybe its just bad luck on my part but almost every GS warrior that I have seen seems to be unable to dodge attacks and end up getting downed constantly, I know I shouldn’t generalize but it has happened to me that often that it makes me sad when a signet/GS warrior joins my group.

Its just bad luck mate…
Im sure there are plenty of good warriors out there like the ones who have posted here that won’t give you a headache when playing with them :P
Maybe the problem is that our class seems to be so easy at first sight that attracts many inexperienced players that are just content with the possibility of dealing insane damage but forget everything else like switching weapons at the right time and especially how to dodge properly (to be honest Im still learning to improve my dodge timing).

Well, people say banner sux, but i find it free swiftness + signet of rage = 15%- 33% speed in solo pve. Anyway, I know GW2 was not intended designed role into class, but warrior still excels in DPSing.

Must agree with Ryoga here, i play a Signet build atm, heavy glass cannon in berserker gear when soloing but alot of the time when i go into dungeons i may just forget to shift some skills until the first fight haha, in which cause i generally change to a few shouts & traits to complement the group. I know its hard not to pigeon hole us all into 1 category but there are alot of us Signet warriors out there who do know when & what to change it up with

yeah I’m quite happy with the amount of warriors who have posted here it gives me hope for the class, I just wish I ran into more of you in game think I’m going to have to stick with my usual dungeon group rather than pugs though so I can keep my sanity.

20-0-0-30-20 here axe/warhorn + rifle weapons. Shout healing and warhorn cleansing for everything. fgj, omm, and sif on my bars and i’m wearing full crit gear maintaining at 110% crit damage that I rounded up (traits+gear), but not sure if there is a cap. Rarely die in dungeons mainly because ranging is a safe option!

TwistedWarrior.8613:

You come off to me as a condescending little terd. If you don’t like how people play and have a difficult time dealing, then either don’t play or group with friends. Simple. I really don’t like to bother with whiny elitist babies anyway in my PuG groups it spoils my fun.

good for you, I hope to never see you in game, what sort of warrior do you play?

Oh and also I don’t really mind covering for them I just think it shouldn’t be necessary.

pretty much the reason I carry almost all weapons around in my bag, regardless of if im doing solo stuff or dungeons.

mm I will have to try this ranged style warrior at least once, I just cant see my Norn sitting back and shooting something while there is fun to be had up close and personal.

I run with a 30/0/15/10/15 with 4 signets healing, stamina, might, and rage with axe/axe longbow. While I agree I dont bring much in term synergy I run with almost 3500 power with high crits to melt everything. I rarely die with regain from adrenaline level, and signet. Majority of run last under 30mins across all instance.

its not that i hate this cookie cutter GS glass cannon, what i hate is when they say “Dont worry, I’m not a glass cannon”. YEAH OKAY BUD. lol.

Most groups usually have a person or two focused solely on doing damage; every class should be able to bring raw damage builds (and this is coming from someone who usually plays support.) If you have enough damage and need more support, when putting your group together say that you need support, not damage. Problem solved.